


all but broken

by commanderkallian



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon-typical HLtA implied character death, Gen, Non-Canon Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Here Lies the Abyss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:42:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25933081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commanderkallian/pseuds/commanderkallian
Summary: This latest lead is a promising one, and if she can rid them of the taint, she wants to do it with Alistair at her side. Otherwise, how would she know it was gone? Whose arms would she jump into when the relief overwhelmed her? Doing it alone is unthinkable.The bard in the corner starts up another tune, one Kallian hasn’t heard enough times to ignore on instinct yet. Neither, it seems, have the other patrons, because a hush falls over even the most sloshed of them, dozens of heads turning to watch. Even the light patter of rain against the windows seemed to quiet out of respect. She flushes at the attention, flubs a note, curses under her breath and tucks a thin braid behind a pointed ear. At least they still support local art here, she supposes, and does her part to look away and give the poor girl space to recover.She strums again, then starts picking steady notes. Here Kallian would normally give half her attention and let her mind wander, but months of throwing the Commander title around to make her research easier means her focus snaps to whoever saysGarde des Ombresin her presence.--A look at how the Hero of Ferelden learns about the results of Here Lies the Abyss.
Relationships: Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Alistair/Tabris (Dragon Age), Anders/Fenris/Male Hawke (implied)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	all but broken

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Dragon Age Weekly Writing Thread, prompt #3: "the curtain of night, waiting, rain falling."
> 
> I haven't even played Inquisition yet. I only know what I remember from half-watching my partner play years ago, but my brain has been attached to the idea of my Tabris hearing the Grey Warden bard song without context and being horrified ever since I remembered it existed last month. Seeing this prompt gave me the setting and this is the result! I wiki-d the details as well as I could while still trying to avoid getting More spoilers, so sorry if anything's glaringly wrong! 
> 
> This is also the first time I've published something since my FFnet days in middle school, so! Yeah! I hope it's good!

There is no way to describe Halamshiral better than confusing. Years with the Dalish helped her be used to happy elves, but the setting twists her instincts until she feels like a child again, huffing and puffing about a wedding everyone else is excited for. It’s just as loud now as it had been then. Some part of her can’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop. Eventually, a human will storm into the tavern, demand they stop, make them pay for daring to enjoy something, won’t he?

No, she reminds herself, the Inquisitor has taken care of that. She’d run up from the Dales to meet them as soon as she heard whispers, but it seems she wasn’t quite fast enough. The ball is long over, the Inquisitor gone, and with him any hope of meeting up with Alistair this month. He may not have even been there in the first place, but she’d dared to hope- nevermind. It would’ve been nice to see Leliana again either way. It’s been years. Alistair was lucky enough to run into her back in the Free Marches half a decade ago, but the last time Kallian spoke to her in person was in Haven, surrounded by pilgrims desperate for just a look at the Sacred Ashes. They’d planned to get together again, but then Leliana pledged her service to the Divine, Kallian was dragged to Amaranthine, and her advisors, at least, had strongly suggested she not go to Orlais so soon after executing the “hero” who drove them out of Ferelden.

 _Well, look at me now, Garevel._ What a fine face of Ferelden she makes, halfway through a bottle of Orlais’s finest swill. Surrounded by _elves,_ even, Maker forbid. She wonders what he thinks of the Inquisitor. Does he believe that nonsense about being Dalish? Maybe she’ll ask before she resigns.

That resigning is within reach is unbelievable even still. She’s tried to leave so many times, has _left_ so many times, but still they find her and still they sit her in command. She only barely escaped the Conclave by faking a missive from Clarel, and. Well. 

She’s relieved they decided they didn’t need her, at least.

It would’ve really hindered her quest to die. Worse would’ve been if they’d sent Nathaniel in her place, but she supposes he’s too important to with relations with the Couslands to risk. Alistair was in the blighted Marches again, too far away to summon. It was annoying at the time, but she’s more than grateful for it now. Mythal proving herself as the best choice for patron again, she supposes. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she lost him.

She’s still not happy that he’d run off to the Inquisition in the first place, especially without stopping home first to at least make sure the boys haven’t burned the place down yet, but he swore up and down that it was important in his last letter and she knows he’s right. Everyone and their mother are going on about Inquisitor Belavahn these days, obsessed with whispering about his holy hand or his thoughts on the Chantry or, around here, his supposed affair with one of the companions who’d accompanied him to the Winter Palace. Her feelings on the kid are mixed, but that, at least, she sympathizes with. She and Alistair finally got around to tying the knot in the Chantry’s eyes a few years ago, and _still_ people are shocked when the Hero of Ferelden casually refers to her husband or dares to hold the Warden-Constable’s hand in public. The dehumanization that comes with hero worship isn’t something she’d wish upon anyone.

Still angry about the stealing Alistair away thing, though. And the stealing Hawke away thing, if Anders’s last letter is to be believed. Poor man, left all alone to run both of their households. He’s always nervous watching Adris for them even when he’s got Fenris and Hawke for backup. She’ll have to make it up to him somehow. Some stern words and maybe a threat or two to His Worship and maybe she can even send his boys home for him. Even if she can’t, she’s taking Alistair, Herald be damned. This latest lead is a promising one, and if she can rid them of the taint, she wants to do it with Alistair at her side. Otherwise, how would she know it was gone? Whose arms would she jump into when the relief overwhelmed her? Anders would drop her, twig of a man that he is, and _someone_ needs to stay home with the kid anyway. Doing it alone is unthinkable.

The bard in the corner starts up another tune, one Kallian hasn’t heard enough times to ignore on instinct yet. Neither, it seems, have the other patrons, because a hush falls over even the most sloshed of them, dozens of heads turning to watch. Even the light patter of rain against the windows seemed to quiet out of respect. She flushes at the attention, flubs a note, curses under her breath and tucks a thin braid behind a pointed ear. At least they still support local art here, she supposes, and does her part to look away and give the poor girl space to recover.

She strums again, then starts picking steady notes. Here Kallian would normally give half her attention and let her mind wander, but months of throwing the Commander title around to make her research easier means her focus snaps to whoever says _Garde des Ombres_ in her presence.

Her Orlesian isn’t perfect by any means, but between lessons from Leliana on the road and years of bureaucratics she gets the gist of it. She suppresses a shudder and finishes off the rest of the bottle. It must be a somewhat new song, to get the reception it did, but that doesn’t mean the story it’s telling happened recently. This is Orlais, who knows what’s gone down with their Wardens in the past? There’s nothing saying it has anything to do with the perfect idiot waiting for her in the Frostbacks. Plenty of strongholds in Orlais could fit the bill, probably even Montsimmard. Plenty of places the Veil’s been torn, too. There’s always demons _somewhere._ It doesn’t _have_ to mean anything.

With Kallian’s luck, it probably does. She sits, stony, and waits until the bard is taking a break to approach.

“Where did you learn that song?” she asks, tone carefully neutral. “The one about the _Garde?”_

The poor girl flushes again, fussing with her lute to avoid Kallian’s eyes. “I am still learning to play it, madam, I apologize if I have not-”

“You’ve done fine,” she dismisses quickly, “but who taught it to you? I would like to know the origin of the tale.”

“Oh!” The bard perks up quickly once she doesn’t fear being scolded. “I first heard it played by a traveler from Ferelden border. I did the translation myself.”

Kallian nods, because that’s what she’s learned people like, then presses again. “What betrayal is this a reference to? Some battle ages past?”

The girl shakes her head. “It was written based off tales from the Inquisition, I believe. People are saying there was a great battle and the Wardens caused terrible losses. Or they took losses. What I was told did not make it clear.”

There’s ice in her veins, crawling up her spine, wrapping around her lungs. “Do you recall the lyrics in common?” she forces out, gripping the inside of her cloak tight so she doesn’t start to shake. “I would like to hear them.”

 _Oui,_ says the girl, then she’s humming a short bar and murmuring the lyrics for just the two of them to hear. It takes every ounce of determination she learned from her troops not to lose her liquor right there. She chokes out a _merci_ and leaves the bard be, makes her way upstairs with lead feet just to collect her things. A sovereign in front of the barkeep is more than enough to cover her tab, but she doesn’t wait for change. It’s still dark, but she’s been here since the night before. Her horse is rested enough. She rides.

She doesn’t stop until her horse reaches its limit, and even then she pushes it to the next town and throws gold at people until they give her a new one. Jader is meant to be five days from Halamshiral. Getting up the mountain to Skyhold will take another three, at least, and that’s not counting the trip from Jader to the mountain in the first place. A week and a half is too long to sit unsure. Gold gets her to Jader by nightfall of the third day, and finally she rests. In the morning, she’ll get a fresh horse and trade it at the base of the mountain. From there, she’ll have to slow. She prays for quick travels, forces herself calm on Antivan wine, and tells herself to wake at dawn.

She doesn’t, but breakfast is still being served downstairs, so she takes advantage of it. It’s unlikely she’ll find time to eat more than once a day from now on. Small luxuries. She even lets herself take time to enjoy it, which she regrets when the elf rushes in, looks around, and comes straight to her, still panting.

“Letter from,” he coughs, “Varric Tethras. You’re Tabby?”

She doesn’t ask how he knows. She doesn’t ask anything. She just snatches the envelope from his fist and tears it open, skimming for names. There’s _Hawke_ and _Fenris_ and something about the Fade, Tranquility, she doesn’t _care_ about the details right now, just needs something more specific than the _we_ at the beginning. There, at the bottom, she finally sees it. The words don’t fit together right. They’re not sentences, just bits and pieces of concepts that don’t make sense.

 _Alistair,_ it says. Alistair, not Clumsy or Loverboy, followed by _sacrificed_ and _gone_ and _sorry_ and other words that blur together into one big **no.**

 _Come to Skyhold,_ it says at the bottom, just above Varric’s blotchy signature. The ink there streaks as her tears start to land. She reads the last paragraph again and again until it’s all that’s left in her mind.

Alistair, gone. Come to Skyhold.

She will.

And when she does, Taralen Belavahn has a lot to answer for.


End file.
